


Our Hearts Are Wrong

by mad_teagirl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-05-12
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 21:25:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_teagirl/pseuds/mad_teagirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is set roughly four years before the start of the series. I had been writing a Sherlock/Irene that took place during the current series time-line, but then I got completely sidetracked with their back story and so this happened. The title comes from the Jessica Lea Mayfield song of the same name</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. She couldn't help thinking that there was a little more to life somewhere else

**Author's Note:**

> **Beta(s)** : This is apparently the fic that is taking a village to raise, as it is currently being beta-ed by [](http://sabrinaphynn.livejournal.com/profile)[**sabrinaphynn**](http://sabrinaphynn.livejournal.com/) , read again for general flow by [](http://martinius.livejournal.com/profile)[**martinius**](http://martinius.livejournal.com/) , and then in a last minute crisis of "DEAR GOD THIS IS AWFUL" looked over one last time by my dearest [](http://suchaprince.livejournal.com/profile)[**suchaprince**](http://suchaprince.livejournal.com/) , I owe you ladies like whoa, and feel free to collect on that whenever you see fit.  
>  **Disclaimer** : Pretty much everything belongs to either ACD, Gatiss, Moffat, or the BBC with the exception of my casting choice for Miss Adler, and my choice to take her character in the direction of psychology and criminal profiling as opposed to opera singing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes waltzed into her life three months into her internship with London’s homicide division. It had been her first case she was allowed to shadow Inspector Lestrade, and he’d been hovering over the dead body by the time she had gotten to the crime scene; out of breath from running from the tube station and clutching her clipboard to her chest.

  


  


Irene Adler was born with the unremarkable name of Katherine Amelia Murphy, to a used car salesmen and a waitress in Bayonne, New Jersey, a family barely above the state poverty line. She was the middle of five children, a position that afforded her neither the prestige of being the oldest, nor the novelty of the youngest. Irene spent most of her childhood trying to get her parents’ attention – but the only time she ever managed to was when she was in trouble.

The first time she could clearly remember her mother directly addressing her, without accidentally calling her by her sister’s name, was as they left the Principal's office. Irene was eight years old, and her skinned knee and split lip were trophies of the fight she’d gotten into. Lunch money had been demanded, and she had chosen to jump, biting and kicking, at the two older, larger boys who had attempted to bully her.

She had clearly remembered sitting outside the Principal’s office, between the two boys who had also been involved in the altercation. She had sniffled at her bloody nose, lamenting her torn skirt and the already flowering bruises – but the boys who had been seated on either side of her sported enough scratches and scrapes that she had felt an odd sort of pride. She had known that the appropriate response to this situation should have been shame, and the two boys clearly had had guilt written on their faces. But for the first time in her life she had been noticed … the teacher supervising recess, the principal, and now her mother.

Her mother had stepped out of the office, twisting her fingers in the apron of her waitressing uniform, nodding and apologizing, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, eyes fixed on the floor. Until they had flickered up to Irene, and there had been a cold, calculated recognition there in that look that made Irene feel like it was the first time this almost stranger who had birthed her had actually _looked_ at her.

“ _Katherine._ ” Her mother had said, making a hasty motion towards herself, and she had hopped down from the chair, relishing the sound of her own name despite the circumstances it was said under. Her mother had taken hold of her hand and all but dragged her out into the parking lot. One of Irene’s clearest memories of her mother was the rough feeling of the yellow fabric of her mother’s uniform against her elbow, and the way her mother had stared straight ahead. Even in the car she had stared at the road, it wasn’t until they pulled into the driveway that her mother had said under her breath.  
“Your father can’t know about this. Go get cleaned up, and if he asks, you fell at recess.”

She had nodded, but the thrill of that attention had stuck with her.

A few weeks later both of her parents were called in to the Principal’s office. Irene hadn’t even known the child that the boy the grade above her had been pounding on, and it certainly hadn’t been for his benefit when she had hit the older boy over the back of the head with her geography textbook. She had better war wounds after that scrape, the ten year old boy who’d been on the receiving end of her book was much larger, and Irene had been a small child. She could hear her father bellowing in the Principal’s office, but the words were all indignation over his needing to take time off work for something as trivial as a child’s scrabble. Once more in the uncomfortable, scuffed, plastic chair outside the office, her feet swinging unconsciously and holding a bag of ice over her eye, and her arm still stinging where the school nurse had disinfected her cuts and covered them in bright, cartoon character bandages.

The receptionist had looked so sympathetically at the small brunette girl, who would have a disturbingly dark black eye in a matter of hours, and offered her a lollipop from the mug on her desk. Assuring Irene that “it sounds worse in there than it is; your Daddy is just concerned about his little girl because he loves you so much.”

She had accepted a blueberry flavored tootsie pop, and with a forced smile told the receptionist that “no, no he doesn’t” in the most serious voice the woman had ever heard out of a child in her professional history with the Bayonne School District.

But it was then that Irene, at eight years old, realized that the attention she needed was never going to come from her family, and that this route was going to get her broken bones at some point. And she knew that she would spend the rest of her life being ignored, and probably slowly turning into her mother, if she didn’t somehow get out of New Jersey.

**

The fights had stopped, and she’d opted for impressing her parents with her school work instead. And while even that met with little to no notice whatsoever, as long as there wasn’t complete silence she managed to function without too much of an incident. If not being noticed made her feel like she was fading into the background, silence made her feel like she was eroding into nothingness. Ever since she was seven she’d snuck the radio into her bed, even when all she could get was the news, it made her at least feel corporeal.

When she was fourteen there had been a rather unfortunate incident in the science lab during a Physics mid-term. And this time there was more than just Strawberry Shortcake bandages needed to patch her back together. After she got out of the hospital she found herself sitting outside the Principal’s office for the fourth time, listening through the door, only this time her father would not even come. And through the door she had heard the hush discussion of psychiatric care and medication.

And while initially her mother had batted away the school guidance counselor’s insistence that Irene see a psychiatrist before the state needed to get involved, because the child was _obviously_ disturbed; her mother had eventually given up and given in. After that it had been Doctor Halestead twice a week, and three pills in the morning, and again before sleeping.

And each week the Doctor would ask again why the incident in the science lab had happened. And each week she would shrug, because even at fourteen she knew better than to tell him about the silence, and the way it affected her.

**

A little over a year later, Irene let the first boy who told her she was pretty kiss her. It was a sloppy, unpleasant experience; but he was attractive and popular, so she allowed there to be several more, equally unimpressive kisses. He was a few years older than her, and on the foot ball team, and Irene liked the way everyone looked past her cheap, second hand clothes when she walked down the halls of their high school on his arm. A few months later he told her that he thought he might be in love with her, while they sat in his car looking out at the Kill Van Kull. So she hadn’t stopped him when he had pressed her into the backseat of his car, fumbling with her skirt and the hooks of her bra. It was the first time she had ever had someone’s undivided attention, and much like her first kiss, losing her virginity was a messy, unpleasant affair.

There were a few more similar fumbles, before he “realized” that he wasn’t, in fact, in love with her after all. The next week he was dating one of the head cheerleaders, and Irene attempted a few more equally unremarkable forays into sex and dating, more to remind herself that she still existed, even if it was only through the reactions of a string of rather simple minded teenage boys. She maintained a perfect grade average, skipped ahead multiple grades, and graduated high school barely over the age of sixteen. Her academics had been impressive enough that she amassed enough scholarships to get her as far away from New Jersey as possible, across the Atlantic Ocean, even.

It was after getting accepted into Kingston University, that she left New Jersey without a backwards glance, and only a short note taped to the mirror of the bedroom she’d shared with her sister. She walked away from Bayonne, and her association with the Murphy family. When she reached England she stepped off the plane Miss Irene Elizabeth Adler, and never gave her old life in New Jersey another thought. Re-creating herself as Adler instead of Murphy; she wanted desperately to fit in with her classmates. Most of them were trust fund children from old money, Katherine Murphy may have come from a lower class household, but Irene Adler would be the kind of girl who fit in with her Kingston classmates. They didn’t need to know that her money came from student loans and scholarships, or that she would skip eating for days to afford to dress like the rest of them did.

She wasn’t sure what made her decide she wanted to pursue profiling, but she fell in love with abnormal psychology, and then criminology, and ultimately the idea of understanding the way the serial killer brain functioned. What she never told anyone was that the love came from the way that her serial killers made her feel like she was human, and almost normal – and not some strange creature, constantly braying for attention and approval.

**  
Her senior year of university much pleading, and about twenty letters of recommendation, had gotten her an internship with Scotland Yard. It wasn’t MI-5, but they squeezed her into the homicide division; with the promise of getting to job shadow after a few months of more mundane office based tasks.

It was mostly coffee runs and organizing backlogged files, but Lestrade was kind and patient and never snapped at Irene’s thousands of questions. The rest of the yard generally ignored her, with the exception of Sally Donovon, who was the closest thing Irene had come to having a friend, or at least someone who seemed to like her and didn’t mind getting drinks and watching East Enders with her.

Sherlock Holmes waltzed into her life three months into her internship with London’s homicide division. It had been her first case she was allowed to shadow Inspector Lestrade, and he’d been hovering over the dead body by the time she had gotten to the crime scene; out of breath from running from the tube station and clutching her clipboard to her chest.

He was pale, and perfect, and brooding. And he barely even acknowledged her presence. If she were more sentimental she would have called it love at first sight.

For her at least; He didn’t even look at her until she “accidentally” bumped into him while examining the crime scene.

“Sorry.” She had whispered, and he had glanced at her briefly with a terse, utterly insincere little smile. His eyes were the exact color of the cloudy London sky outside, and she could already see the ridiculously long hours ahead of her obsessing over getting that cold stare directed at her again.

It wasn’t until there were three more bodies, and not a single lead on the serial killer that Lestrade turned to Irene with a sigh, and asked her opinion on who they might be looking for. Irene had shifted her weight in her ridiculously high stiletto heels, chewing uneasily on the cap of her pen.

“He’s an exhibitionist.” She’d said finally. “In most cases the profile points toward a lone wolf typology, the kill itself is the fulfillment, not the attention. But he displays his victims; he _wants_ people to notice him. He’s well educated, and probably financially well off. Most likely he’s in a cultured profession – there’s an artwork to this. Also, I’m willing to bet, from the neatness of the work, that there have been many more. He’s just now escalating into _letting_ us find them. So, affluent, middle aged, and probably employed in the arts – orchestra maybe? Or even a museum curator?”

Lestrade had nodded thoughtfully at that.

“Good, good, we may make a profiler of you yet, Adler.”

**

He had found her outside, sitting on the curb beyond the police tape. Huddled into her coat, cigarette clamped between her lips, he’d seated himself next to her, digging a packet of cigarettes out of his trench.

“Can I borrow your lighter?” He’d said, but it sounded more like a command then a question, and she had still been more than a little shocked about why he was out here with her. So she’d wordlessly turned it over to him; her pulse thumping loudly in her ears as she watched his long fingers flick open her lighter, the way his mouth closed on the cigarette made her imagine how those lips would feel pressed against her bare skin and she shivered involuntarily.

“That was good back there.” He said after a silence that seemed to span years. They had both been on this case for nearing two months and it was the most he’d ever said to her.

“I’m sorry?” Irene asked cautiously.

“That … the arts bit, I hadn’t put that together. And that’s a bit rare... it was, well...”

“Clever?” She offered, with a slightly arched eyebrow.

“Mmm.” He turned slightly, so he was facing towards her, inadvertently knocking his knees against hers. But he didn’t re-situate himself, he staid, knees pressed against her left thigh. “The name’s Sherlock Holmes.” He didn’t try to shake her hand, he just stared at her expectantly.

Irene bit at her bottom lip slightly to keep from grinning at him. It didn’t seem appropriate.

“I know who you are.” She told him, inwardly supposing she shouldn’t be surprised at his self involvement, she had been watching him like a hawk since the day she first saw him. But he still had that oddly expectant look on his face, and she couldn’t fight the smile back. “Irene.” She said quietly. “Irene Adler.”

“I know who you are.” Sherlock parroted back at her with a wry smile.

“Oh, you do not.” She said, without any real malice in it. Although she enjoyed the idea that he actually _might_. That Sherlock Holmes had taken more than a second to study her, to try and figure her out.

“Oh, I do.” The smile had morphed into a sort of Cheshire cat grin that Irene thought should maybe concern her. It was, after all, the popular opinion around the Homicide Division that Sherlock Holmes was _quite_ mad. “You’re twenty four years old, a psychology student. You’re brilliant, that’s the only way you got into Kingston, your parents never could have afforded university, let alone overseas. But you wouldn’t have taken their money even if they could, you’ve gone out of your way to disassociate from them. You don’t have a cent to your name, but you like to play aristocrat, even though everything you’re wearing is an imitation and you can never let any of your friends come back to your flat because it’s a bit of a dive, isn’t it? Everything you do is inspired by your need to be noticed, up to and including, those absolutely ridiculous shoes you so love because they force people to look up at you when they speak to you… I could keep going.”

“Please don’t.” She said quickly. Oh, he was mad all right. Some frightening combination of lunatic, genius, and perhaps even psychic..? It was unnerving in any case.

“Aren’t you going to ask how I knew all that?”

“No.” Irene told him, dropping her cigarette and grinding it under the toe of her shoe. “I’d just as soon not know.” Then a thought occurred to her and she looked at him, practically beaming “But that all means that you’ve been watching me, if you know all that.”

“Yes.” Sherlock said flatly, like she had just pointed out that they were breathing oxygen. “It’s what I do. I watch. I deduce. It’s why the police call me in.”

“They didn’t call you in to study _me_ though.” The way he looked at her was like he couldn’t even fathom that she was attempting to flirt with him. The way he looked at her was like she was a new strain of bacteria under a microscope, and he was trying to figure out how it worked. It didn’t make her particularly comfortable. She focused on the fading glow of the cigarette under her shoes, twisting her fingers in the hem of her coat. “So, would you maybe want to get a bite with me?”

“I don’t eat when I’m on a case, digestion slows me down.” He said automatically. She couldn’t really be surprised, it was feeble attempt on her part anyway. But then he had turned ever so slightly and fixed her with that cold stare “But a spot of tea might be nice”

Irene couldn’t be sure what had surprised her more, the response to her suggestion, that this strange, gorgeous man had accepted her weak attempt to ask him out, or that as he so gracefully got to his feet he absently offered her his hand to help her up. It was fluid, and natural, and God help her, she was smitten.


	2. I've Been Dragging Around From The End Of Your Coat For Two Weeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The answer was inside the music itself, the rise and fall. She could see each graceful movement of the melody through the arrangement of their limbs and the victims’ open, glassy eyes. The killer had loved the music deeply, enough for it to have stirred something sleeping inside of him into action

  


  


They’d found a small café to tuck into, just them and the stack of files Irene had “borrowed” from Lestrade regarding the case. Irene generally felt awkward being the only one eating; there was wanting attention, and then there was someone thinking you were a cow, after all. But they’d been hours at the crime scene and she hadn’t eaten anything, and while all that Sherlock got was a cup of tea that he barely even touched, the whole time that she was eating he pointed out various people in the café, detailing their professions, and more often, their short comings. Every so often he would absently reach across the table to take the files she was peering at while she multi tasked listening to him judge everyone and attempting to eat her salad, and she would give his hand a good natured slap.

“Is this what you usually do on a date?” She’d said finally, with a sigh of mock exasperation, and it had actually made him stop talking for a moment. Before then she had never supposed that anything could render him speechless, she had gotten used to hearing his lengthy, one sided conversations with the other members of Homicide, and how entirely unfazed he was by their usually dim responses. But he had sat staring at her in silence.

“Date.” He’d said finally, arching an eyebrow at her. Irene smiled, awkwardly, making a pretense of shoving her salad around her plate with her fork.

“Isn’t that what this is…?”

“You tell me.” But he hadn’t sounded mocking at all, he had sounded like he had honestly _wanted_ her to explain it to him.

“It’s what anyone looking at us would assume.” Irene said, absently twisting a strand of hair between her left index finger and thumb.

“Oh.” He said shortly, and actually looked good and genuinely confused. The silence that descended after that statement made her uncomfortable; so she decided, instead, to pointedly stare at the case folder in front of her. She arranged and re-arranged the crime scene photos; when she noticed a detail in the photographs that she had completely missed before. A small rectangle of white by each of the victim’s hands, too small to identify without any sort of magnification – Irene frowned, sorting through them each and finding the same thing in each picture.

It had only been the smallest furrow of her brow, but he’d noticed, because he was Sherlock Holmes and he noticed everything.

“You’ve found something.” Sherlock said. It wasn’t a question and for a moment she was tempted to point it out to him, have him tell her that she was clever for having seen what every other person to open that file had missed. But something stopped her, this was hers, she had found it. So instead Irene smiled and shook her head with a small laugh, tucking the pictures back into their folder and slipping it into her purse.

“No, nothing.”

**

The entire answer had played out for her by six in the morning. Sitting on the floor of her dingy flat in the poor lighting, a magnifier in her hand; she had recognized the treble clefs and quavers on the small white rectangles in the photographs. Each a small piece of a larger whole, a torn bit of sheet music. It took her two hours to piece together the notes on each scrap, but together they were a piece that she recognized completely. In fact, Irene knew it by heart. It was one of the few cassette tapes she’d owned as a child that she’d played over and over every night in bed, trying to keep the silence at bay.

The answer was inside the music itself, the rise and fall. She could see each graceful movement of the melody through the arrangement of their limbs and the victims’ open, glassy eyes. The killer had loved the music deeply, enough for it to have stirred something sleeping inside of him into action – that action being the murder of brunette girls between the ages of twenty one and thirty three. Irene had synched up Brahms on her headphones, opened her laptop and sifted through hours of implausible connections.

In the midst of the Requiem’s third movement she had found him in the news backlogs and it had gone off in her head in perfect pitch with the rise of the chorus singers and the string section.

“Found you.” She mouthed at her computer screen with a triumphant grin.

So when she’d arrived at Scotland Yard it had been with her head held high and the knowledge that she _knew who the killer was_ , she’d solved it. Irene rapped her knuckles lightly on the open door to Lestrade’s office and he glanced up, almost warily.

“Adler? What are you doing here this early? Don’t you have class soon?” He asked rubbing at the stubble that had formed on his face. She noted that he had slept in his office, but didn’t say as much.

“Sir, can I sit down?” Lestrade looked resigned, miserable, and Irene wanted to ask what was wrong, even though she had already guessed at the state of his marriage, so she didn’t. He nodded and she slid into the chair in front of his desk, clutching her folder of notes and print outs to her chest. “I know whose been doing these murders. It came to me last night, there was something right in front of us, but we all missed it. But then I figured it out-”

“Adler…” Lestrade started, leaning forward with that look of sympathy she had come to recognize on the faces of teachers when she was growing up. It gave her a sinking feeling, because she knew what he was going to say next, so she spoke quickly to cut him off before he did.

“It’s Brahms’ Requiem … he’s been leaving pieces of it by each of the victims, that’s the clue. I knew he was involved in the arts, but it wasn’t until I realized it was Brahms that I knew who I was looking for and-”

“ _Irene_ ” He said her name not unkindly, fondly putting his hand on top of hers, and here it was; the speech she’d known was coming. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, I do, but you’re interning, for Christ sake, you’re a _student_. Job shadowing is one thing but I can’t have you running around playing detective. Do you know how much of a liability that is? The university would have my head. You’ve got to leave the police work to the actual police, love. Go try to get a nap or something before you have to get to class, you look like you haven’t slept at all.”

Irene bit down on her bottom lip and nodded. She couldn’t even argue, because he was right. But she was right too and as she got up to leave she was filled with overbearing need to _prove_ that she was right.

She all but ghosted through the office on her way to the elevator; research cradled protectively to her chest when she rather bodily slammed into Sherlock for the second time since she’d met him. He caught her arm lightly and steadied her as she barely managed to _not_ drop her arm full of folders, and he looked somewhat in the neighborhood of being glad to see her.

“I have a few theories about the murderer-” He started to say, and was abruptly cut off by her leaning forward and resting her head against his chest. Sherlock froze up slightly, after a moment he finally put the hand that wasn’t wrapped around her forearm lightly against her back. If she hadn’t been as tired and frustrated as she was Irene probably would have found it odd that he didn’t make any move to push her away.

“Sorry.” Irene said after awhile and finally looked up at him. Sherlock shook his head looking almost bewildered.

“It’s… fine.” He told her.

“Right, what were you saying?” She asked rubbing the heel of her free hand against the corners of her eyes quickly.

“I’ve had a few ideas about the case… if you’re interested.” Irene tilted her head at that with a small smile.

“Sure, sure, or you could, I don’t know, come catch him with me.”

Both of Sherlock’s hands locked onto her shoulders then as he peered at her.

“You _did_ see something last night, you _know_ who it is.” She nodded and couldn’t help the grin spreading across her face.

“Mmm. I know who he is, and I know how to draw him out.”

“Really? And how are you planning to do that?” Irene reached into the folder, pulling out two of the victims’ pictures and fanning them by her face.

“Hadn’t you noticed? I’m his type.”

**

When Irene had finally located the out of the way bistro that Mr. George Powell ate his lunch at, her first reaction had been to doubt herself. She was extremely sleep deprived, she could have made a mistake, and for all appearances, he looked like a rather nice older gentlemen. Sherlock had all but sulked at her refusal to clue him in to how she knew George Powell was their killer, but he had grudgingly agreed to get a hold of Lestrade once Irene had made contact with Powell after she promised to explain later. She took a deep breath before approaching him, appearances or not, nice older gentlemen didn’t generally turn serial killer.

“I’m sorry, is anyone sitting here?” She asked, smiling more than she would normally. The man looked up, confused. “You are George Powell, aren’t you? Of the New London Symphony? I’m a huge a fan.” He smiled at that and motioned to the empty chair across from him.

“I’m flattered, my dear, but if you’re a fan, you must know that I no longer am the conductor for the symphony.” He shifted to pour himself another cup of tea and Irene noted how every movement was done completely with his left hand, his right lying in his lap.

“I was sorry to hear about that. I’ve only been to the symphony once since then; the girl they have in your place is absolute rubbish. Not like you, your handling of Chopin’s Nocturnes was absolutely sublime.” Irene said, falling into her typical habits when she would try to be flirtatious. Smiling too much, twisting her hair, giggling – it was how girls normally acted when they were trying to flirt, and Irene acted when she was trying to be normal.

George laughed good naturedly at that.

“You’re too kind.” He told her, taking a sip of his tea. She shook her head.

“It’s true, I’m only sad that I never got to hear what you would have done with Brahms, that was the next symphony you had planned wasn’t it?” He was affected by it; she noticed the way his jaw clenched slightly. It was subtle, but it was there.

“The Requiem” George said shortly, his hand tightening on the handle of his tea cup.

“Such a shame, it’s my favorite.” Irene leaned back in her chair, hands arranged neatly in her lap.

“It’s mine too… but there’s nothing I can do about that. What’s done is done.”

“That doesn’t mean that you aren’t angry about it” George jolted slightly at that and stared at her with his eyes widening.

“What are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything Mr. Powell. I know. It makes you angry, doesn’t it? Watching that girl do your job; she’s just a kid really, and she’s supposed to be taking on Brahms? You’ve been doing this for twenty years and you always wanted ‘The Requiem’, but you never got it. And then came that pesky stroke and the symphony started treating you like you were useless, how can you conduct an orchestra with just one hand? This was your dream, you loved it, and it’s just been taken from you. And it made you mad.”

“Who are you?” George Powell breathed.

“I wasn’t finished.” Irene fixed him with an unwavering, dangerous look. “At first the stroke threw me off. The work, well, the murders, they were so polished, so _professional_. And I thought it would be hard to achieve that level of artistry with one hand – much like conducting a symphony. But you’re an artist, aren’t you Mr. Powell? Like the symphony, you’ve been doing this for years, and if there’s one thing all successful artists understand it’s how to adapt.”

“How did you…?”

“Like I said, the Requiem is my favorite. You left it there like you wanted to be found, maybe most people would have ignored something like that, but I know that piece backwards and forwards. Were all your victims brunette girls in their mid twenties, or did you M.O. just switch after Rebecca Adams got your job? If there’s one thing I know as well as I know Brahms, it’s serial killers, and there was _experience_ in your work. There’s no way these girls were your first” His good hand tightened around the edge of the table.

“I see. And you’re going to do what now, with this information, little girl like you? You could get hurt you know.” He all but growled; Irene waved a dismissive hand, not seeming at all scared or put off by this.

“You had to slip them something, didn’t you? You didn’t have to before, but after the stroke it wasn’t so easy any more; killing them, I mean.” She continued, un-phased. “Drugging them was the only way that your work stayed so neat. Did you just charm your way in? I mean, you’re rather dashing still, it must have been so easy.”

“It was.” He said with a shrug, relaxing and leaning back. “Really, it was ridiculous. They were all so young and impressionable, not unlike you. Are you thinking I’m going to let you walk away? What makes you so much more special than them? They were lovely girls. I can’t have you telling anyone else, even though I doubt they would believe you, it’s best to be safe” He smiled easily  
“I know that look, you’re curious; you want me to tell you how I did it; _why_ I did it before Rebecca came along. I can see all the little cogs turning in that brain of yours darling. I barely had to do a thing to get all those girls home, so many girls who would do anything for the chance at a better life. Girls like you – they just wanted to shine, even if just for a minute. I gave them that, they were plain little nobodies and when I was done with them… they were so much more than that.”

“Why? Because you gave them purpose when you killed them? You made them into something; as if they were compositions on sheet music?” Irene said incredulously.

“More than that, I made them into masterpieces, love, each of them a small piece of a larger symphony. No one knew who they were the day before, and then there they were, front page, everyone looking. People would die for that kind of fame, and just think of the sonata I could make with you.”

“I wouldn’t be too heavy handed with those threats, especially when you don’t have any chance of implementing them.” A cool voice behind Irene said as Sherlock sat down in the empty chair to her right. “Scotland Yard is already outside, waiting. And you don’t much look the type to get away quickly on foot right now.” Sherlock said.

“Am I supposed to be intimidated by the two of you? You could be bluffing.” There was something like the look between co-conspirators when Sherlock glanced at Irene and she couldn’t help but grin despite the gravity of the situation.

“I wouldn’t expect you to be intimidated by me, Mr. Powell.” Irene told him with complete, wide-eyed honesty. She maintained her look of perfect innocence - even as the front door of the bistro banged open, and the police began to file in, with the click of their guns having the safety removed as they raised them and surrounded their target. “Them, however, I _would_ be intimidated by.”

**

“Adler, didn’t I tell you to go home, or school, or something? Didn’t I at least tell you to not keep doing whatever this all is?” Lestrade said with a heavy sigh as they stood in front of the bistro, watching two sergeants fold George Powell into a squad car.

“We were just having lunch here, Sir, I can’t be expected to control who comes into this place, can I?” Her eyes never left were Sherlock was standing, a bit away, explaining the situation to a lieutenant who was taking down his every word. Lestrade followed her gaze and seemed to slump even further into his coat.

“I should have known introducing the two of you would be a terrible idea.” Irene looked at him quizzically.

“Wait, what?”

“I mean, you’re young and I don’t want you getting mixed up in all …” He made a vague gesture. “I know it’s what you want to do with the rest of your life but. I don’t even know what I’m saying. You completely ditched your classes today didn’t you?”

“I may have.” Irene shrugged “But I did catch you a serial killer, so I think that’s worth missing one sociology class.” Lestrade leaned forward, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Just because all of this is _completely_ out of regulation doesn’t mean I’m not proud of you, you know that, right, Adler? Just … I don’t know. Be careful.” He ruffled her hair affectionately before leaving, passing Sherlock on route. The latter reached where Irene was standing with a cat like grin on his face.

“At some point you’ll have to tell me how you figured it all out.”

“If I didn’t know better I would say that you were impressed, Sherlock.” The grin on his face changed into a frown and for a moment Irene almost panicked that teasing him might have put a hole in whatever fragile thing had started build between them.

“Tell me over lunch?” He asked in a voice that sounded almost … _hopeful_? And Irene couldn’t help but laugh.

“So you can watch me eat and make snide remarks about everyone else the whole time?”. Sherlock considered it for a moment before nodding. “I’d love to.” She said.


	3. You're Poison In A Pretty Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know, while I find this perfectly charming, some might consider it stalking” Irene told him. It wouldn’t do to let on just how thrilled she was by the prospect that he was even half as interested in her as she was in him.  
> “Would they?” He asked with a smile evident in his voice “How very dull.”

  


  


Irene had barely set foot inside the doorway of the Scotland Yard’s office when Sally Donovan was all but on top of her, grabbing her arm and propelling her into the lounge. Irene had to catch herself before she dropped both her folders and the tray of coffees she was holding.

“Irene, we’re mates, right?” Sally had her hands on her hips and a look that hovered between anger and hurt. Irene’s first thought had been that she must have done something terribly, terribly wrong to warrant Sally looking at her in that fashion.

“I … yes? I mean yes, of course we are, where is this coming from?”

“Might even venture far enough to say that we’re best mates, yeah?” Sally inched forward and Irene took a reflexive step backwards, depositing both tray and folder atop the microwave.

“No really, what’s happening, because I’ve got nothing.” Irene said.

“Then why didn’t you tell me that you’re dating Sherlock Holmes?”

“Because I’m not” Irene replied with a small, disbelieving laugh.

“Oh yeah? That’s not what I hear from Melanie in forensics.”

“That gossipy bitch...” She had opened her mouth to say more and abruptly stopped as Anderson entered the lounge, poking at the Styrofoam cups in her tray.

“Tell me you got something besides that horrific hazelnut drivel.” He mumbled as he sniffed at one of the coffees through the sipping hole.

“You could always buy your own, especially since, you know, I get them for the office. I’m sure someone perfectly pleasant gets coffee for the Forensics department.” Irene folded her arms, fixing him with a withering stare.

“And here I thought the coffee was why we kept you around. By the way, could you maybe get your psychopath boyfriend to not hang around here so much? It’s bad enough that Lestrade keeps calling him in…” Irene snatched the coffee out of his hand before he finished the sentence, ignoring the burn when some of it splashed against her palm in the process. In her heels she was taller than him, and she enjoyed that he actually took a step back from her.

“Try shaving sometime Anderson, your beard makes you appear even less intelligent than you already do. And when you head back to forensics, let Melanie know that she needs to find a new subject to gossip about.” She all but growled before dropping his coffee into the trash, gathering up her folders and the tray and pushing past him into the rest of the office.

**

Lestrade had begun to look even more worn around the edges and it made Irene feel a sort of helpless, protective, sympathy. But she was keenly aware that on top of everything else, the last thing the Detective Inspector needed was her pity, so she arranged her face into a mask of optimism and set the Styrofoam cup of coffee on his desk. He smiled gratefully at her as he sipped at it.

“Any word on the George Powell court case?” She asked as he balanced the tray against one hip so she could push a piece of hair behind her ear.

“Oh, the devil has a fantastic lawyer as per usual. He’s trying to make some sort of plea for insanity.” Lestrade made a dismissive, almost disgusted looking hand gesture.

“Can he do that?”

“He can try, but with all the evidence against him, and the fact that you practically got a confession out of him, it won’t happen, don’t worry. Sorry you’re stuck on coffee runs, I’d ask you if you wanted to look at a new case, but it’s been an astoundingly crime free week I’m afraid.” He told her and Irene nodded, but stopped as he added “Which is why he hasn’t been here in days.”

“Why _who_ hasn’t?” Irene raised an eyebrow, attempting to look completely confused.

“Oh Adler, don’t act like _you_ think I’m stupid too. I get that enough around here, and everyone already knows, so you don’t need to act like it’s some sort of big secret. I would have the ‘you’re a nice girl and deserve a nice boy who isn’t mad as street rat’ conversation with you, but I’m sure it wouldn’t do any good whatsoever.”

Irene smiled affectionately at him and shook her head.

**

Lestrade had been right, a lack of new murders had roughly been equal to a lack of Sherlock Holmes at Scotland Yard. She had known that, logically, an absence of violent crime was something people normally considered to be good; Irene found it so dull it was madness inducing. Weeks of nothing but course work, coffee runs, and meeting Sally for a pint and East Enders.

“I would gladly kill someone for a good spree murderer right about now.” Irene had groaned as she had all but slammed her head into the table she sat at with Sally.

“I’ll try to ignore the irony of that statement.” Sally had said patiently and patted her friend on the head comfortingly.

**

It had been 3:30 in the afternoon and a little over three quarters of the way through her Criminal Justice class when Irene’s phone had first buzzed angrily from her purse. She flipped it open, ignoring the disapproving scowl of the boy sitting closest to her.

  
_Bored  
\- SH_   


Irene suppressed her grin behind her hand. Not only because Sherlock Holmes was just as bored as she was, but because he had texted her. And she’d never given him her number.

  
_My condolences, but you do realize I’m in class right now._   


The boy who had first looked irritated made a small hissing noise next to her that she entirely disregarded.

  
_Come as soon as possible. Bellflower Café. May start shooting walls soon.  
\- SH_   


“Some of us are actually trying to pay attention to the professor, you know.” The boy said in a loud whisper.

“Why the devil are you talking to me then?” Irene asked with a completely innocent smile.

**

“You took your time.” Sherlock said nonchalantly, not glancing up from the newspaper spread in front of him as Irene sat down.

“Wait, what?”

“Criminology with Professor Ian Williams, ended at four o’ clock, it takes exactly six and a half minutes to get from Kingston to here and it’s now.” He paused looking up at the clock mounted over bakery case at the far end of the café. “Quarter to five.”

“You know, while I find this perfectly charming, some might consider it stalking” Irene told him. It wouldn’t do to let on just how thrilled she was by the prospect that he was even half as interested in her as she was in him.

“Would they?” He asked with a smile evident in his voice “How very dull.”

She gave a small laugh and leaned back in her chair.

“So what does a bored Consulting Detective do these days? There hasn’t been so much as an armed robbery in a week.”

“Stalk you, apparently.” Sherlock answered, folding the newspaper neatly and putting it to the side of his untouched cup of tea.

“That makes me the next best thing to a serial killer I suppose?”

“Near enough.”

“Eighty percent of Scotland Yard already thinks we’re dating. If they found out about all this they would never shut up.” Irene mumbled pushing her hair behind her ears.

“And what is it people do when they’re ‘dating’, exactly?” He leaned forward, elbows planted on the table and his fingers laced under his chin like he was studying her. Irene shrugged, frowning slightly.

“They eat, they go to the cinema. Sometimes there’s an awkward kiss involved . Then you get to decide whether or not you need to start screening your phone calls against potential stalkers.” The corner of Sherlock’s mouth half-quirked in a smile at that.

“Apparently we’ve gotten past the stalking part.”

“I’d say we should go see a film then, but I feel like you would guess the plot twist three minutes in and spend the rest of it complaining about how idiotic the rest of the cast is for not knowing what is happening.”

“I’m sure I can behave for a few hours in a theater.” He told her with a look of mock hurt on his face.  
**

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to get through the whole thing peacefully. I thought that old man two rows back was going to murder us in our seats.” Irene groaned, casting a look behind them at their fellow movie patrons as they exit the theater. A middle aged couple scowled venomously as they brushed past Irene and Sherlock; Irene mouthed a silent ‘I’m so sorry’ as they passed and the woman responded with an annoyed little snort.

“It was _hideously_ predictable.” Sherlock said under his breath as he shoved his hands deep into his pockets, almost absently holding his right elbow out from his body enough for Irene to slip her hand into the crook of it. She wondered if she even realized that he had done it, it was an oddly gentleman-like gesture; especially for Sherlock Holmes. So she’d linked her arms with his and stifled the foolish grin that threatened to spread across her mouth.

“Yes, all right, it wasn’t the cleverest thing ever, but the rest of the theater _was_ trying to watch it, Sherlock” She chided with no real malice in her voice.

“Of course she was in his house the whole time and not a prison. It’s like she went ‘thank you for shaving my head and locking me in your basement! I feel so empowered now!’ It was 1984 with explosions and Stockholm syndrome.” He continued, making an irritated, sweeping, gesture with his free arm.

And Irene gave up and really did laugh then; letting go of his arm when her other hand flew up to cover her mouth and she practically doubled over. This had become the most ridiculously domestic moment of her life: because Good lord, this was what normal people did all the time. _Normal_. Dinner, movie, walking in the park as the sun went down, arms linked and arguing about the shortcomings of a film. Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes behaving like humans. She found the idea truly hilarious.

He had stopped in his tracks and was regarding her with an incredulous, confused expression. The added fact that someone as mad as Sherlock Holmes clearly thought she had completely gone around the bend only made it worse and it took longer than she would have liked before she had regained enough composure to straighten up and wipe the tears from her eyes.

“What?” Sherlock finally asked and Irene grinned at him with a small shrug.

“Us. Playing at being normal people. It’s _ridiculous_ , we’re like a couple of dogs walking around on our hind legs. And that is just terribly funny.”

“Is the problem that you don’t think anyone believed it? Because we managed to incorporate three out of four of your ‘average date’ criteria, especially since we got that troublesome stalking thing out of the way” He moved closer to her as he spoke, hands once again deep within the pockets of his coat.

“Well, thank God for that.” Irene said, folding her arms; a few months earlier she might have been surprised that he had itemized her earlier statement “wait… three out of four? What was the fourth one?”

Sherlock’s gloves were cold against her cheeks as his hands pulled her face up to him and pressed his mouth against hers. It sent a feeling like an electric shock through her belly; even in her heels Irene had to rise almost to the tips of her toes to meet him, hooking her fingers into lapels of his coat.

When Irene had been six years old her parents had taken her and her siblings to a lake in a feeble attempt at family bonding. Her brother Richard had pushed her under the water and held her beneath its surface by her head while she kicked and squirmed.

He had only finally released her when she had dug her blunt fingernails into his knees hard enough to draw blood. Eighteen years later she still clearly remembered the burning sensation in her lungs and the feeling of the water attempting to drag her down and claim her.

Kissing Sherlock Holmes felt like she was drowning all over again.

And when their mouths finally came apart from each other and she gasped oxygen in her lungs it was like breaking the surface of the water. Only this time it was exhilarating, and unlike the lake incident – when her mother had never looked up from her magazine, even while her child thrashed under the water – she knew she had his complete attention.

Irene took a deep breath, pushing back slightly with her hand that was already pressed against his chest, eyes narrowing.  
“Sherlock Holmes, if this is just some sort of experiment because you’re bored to tears without a case, so help me-”

“I’m almost insulted.” He half whispered as he leaned into her again; the second time he kissed her was vaguely less like drowning, but the mixture of panic, excitement, and running out of air was present all over again. If she were more irrational she would say it was one of the most thrilling events in her life – so when Sherlock’s phone buzzed loudly from his coat pocket she made a small, annoyed hiss.

“It’s Lestrade.” Sherlock told her when he had extracted the humming object and checked the text messages.

“And?” Irene asked, chewing at her bottom lip with one hand still holding onto his coat.

“Seems they’ve found a body in the underground near Leicester Square” she quirked an eyebrow at that, reaching for his phone. Sherlock easily moved it out of her reach and she frowned at him.

“Just a body? You wouldn’t be looking like the cat that got the cream if it was just a body.”

“Did I forget to mention that it’s been totally drained of blood?” Irene found herself matching his grin at that.

“Oh. Brilliant.” She breathed.


	4. The Boys Who Kiss And Bite, They Are The Brilliant Ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Technically speaking, I’m; just a student intern, you’re the world’s only consulting detective. You tell me the who and why"

  


 

The look Sally Donovan shot Irene when she arrived at the crime scene was, for lack of a better word, _withering_. Although Irene had to admit, it was not unwarranted. Arguing vehemently that you were not involved with someone, and then turning up almost attached to their hip did smack a bit of hypocrisy. Or at least secrets, and if there was something Irene had started to learn in this whole playing normal thing was that female friends expected you to _share._

It was something she filed away to work on.

Lestrade, on the other hand, glanced at them and gave a small resigned shake of the head that made Irene almost want to grab onto his jacket and ask if he was disappointed in her. It was a thought that made her properly unhappy, more than the idea of her parents being disappointed in her ever had. So Irene lowered her gaze and trailed behind Sherlock to the where the corpse was still hanging, just beyond a mesh of caution tape. The man was hung by his ankles, with his throat cut in a single, deep gash. Otherwise the crime scene was pristine.

“Well?” Lestrade asked, and Irene relaxed slightly.

“Is this exactly how you found him? Nothing has been moved?” Sherlock called over his shoulder from where he stood next to the suspended corpse.

“Nothing, I haven’t even had the place dusted for prints.” Sherlock turned at that, eyes narrowed.

“Are you sure? Nothing has been cleaned at all? I need you to be positive, it’s important.”

“I _said_ nothing’s been touched, so nothing’s been touched. Sherlock, what are you on about?” Lestrade all but groaned.

“This is wrong,” Irene finally said and both men looked at her with nearly identical, confused expressions.

“Well… yes, but someone has been murdered, dear, I think were fairly comfortable with the assumption that it’s _wrong_.” Lestrade said patiently.

“That’s not what I meant,” She told him, pointedly keeping her tone level. “We shouldn’t have found him, the body. Something must have gone wrong, because there’s no way we would have found it otherwise. The killer is … meticulous really.” Lestrade looked from her to the body and back again.

“How do you figure?”

“There’s no blood.” Irene said with a small incline of her head. “And before you say it, no I don’t mean in the body. I was paying attention to the whole drained of blood thing.”

“Exactly!” Sherlock all but shouted with a gesture at the corpse “The crime scene is completely clean. The way the killer drained the victim of the blood was by suspending him by his ankles, and then cutting his throat. It’s the most effective way really, because the heart does all the work – pumps all the blood out without you having to lift a finger. But it’s messy, killing someone that way, there really ought to be blood everywhere.”

“Like I was saying,” she barely suppressed her grin “there’s no blood.”

“Yes all right, but _why_ is there no blood?” Lestrade sighed; Sherlock shot a glance at Irene, like he was passing it off to her, expecting her to be able to explain it.

“That’s what I mean, it’s wrong. Why would someone who is so practiced that he _must_ have had a dozen kills before this one leave him for us to find? I’m willing to bet he’s been doing this for years but this is the first victim we’ve come across. He’s been so careful up until now. Why clean up the scene but leave the body like this? Why kill him out in _public_ to begin with?” She made a small, hopeless, shrug. “We don’t have all the puzzle pieces, it isn’t fitting together right. That’s all I’ve got right now, sorry boss.”

“It’s all right, considering you’re still an intern it wouldn’t be great for morale if you kept catching us murders before any of the other officers even knew there’d been a crime,” Lestrade told her with an affectionate pat on her head before turning and heading back to the rest of the police on the scene.

“What, no theories then?” Sherlock asked with an arched eyebrow. Irene matched his expression, crossing her arms.

“I could ask you the same thing you know. Technically speaking, _I’m_ just a student intern, you’re the world’s only consulting detective. You tell me the who and why.” Sherlock was silent for awhile before pressing his lips into a thin line.

“Fine, you’re right, we need more evidence. Either way we should leave before Anderson comes over here.” Irene looked over her shoulder at that, following his line of sight to where Anderson was pulling on a pair of latex gloves and glaring daggers at the pair of them. Irene made a small, irritated noise in the back of her throat.

“That would probably be for the best, I might actually hit him this time.” Sherlock chuckled at that, but all the same followed her away from the crime scene.

**

It had started to rain as they made it back into the open, and Irene instantly regretted her lack of foresight in not having brought an umbrella. The rain fell hard enough that her hair and clothing were plastered onto her like an extension of her skin, and she could hardly see through the sheets of water, but from what she was able to tell Sherlock was in much the same condition.

Trying to hail a cab proved futile, and after the third one had driven past without stopping, and splashed even more water on her in the process, Sherlock grabbed her arm and pulled her sharply away from the curb.

“Oh, what are you DOING?” She shouted over the sound of the rain, and the starting thunderclaps. “How the HELL am I supposed to get back to my flat if I can’t get a damn taxi?”

“You’re not going to get a cab in this weather. Now come on,” He said, moving his grip to her wrist and pulling her along behind him.

“Where are we even going?” Irene yelled at his back.

“Out of this damn weather,” Had been his only response; without even stopping, or turning to look at her.

She was half numb with cold by the time he yanked her into the lobby of a derelict apartment building. She automatically headed towards the elevator, despite looking less safe than a collapsing mine shaft.

“It doesn’t work.” Sherlock said shortly, holding his hand out to her. Irene had supposed, at the time, she should have found the gesture odd, he wasn’t really one for this sort of physical display.

She’d started to accept the fact that she was not going be able to understand most of the things that this beautiful lunatic was going to do, so she’d let him pull her up three flights of creaking, warped stairs. When he finally stopped in front of a dark door, twisting keys into the lock and giving it a few hard smacks before it opened. She really wasn’t surprised in the least that his flat looked like a tornado had rolled through it.

“It’s colder in here than it was in the storm,” She huffed, watching the pale cloud her breath made. He nodded; a quick, annoyed little bob of the head.

“Yes, the radiator is broken, come on, there’s a space heater in the bedroom.”

“The bedroom?” she asked with a small, incredulous snort.

“You can stay in here and freeze if you’d prefer,” Sherlock said over his shoulder as he headed into the back of his flat, pulling off his wet coat in the process and dropping it behind him. Irene stood in the living room a moment longer, shivering, before kicking her wet shoes off by the front door, squaring her shoulders, and following him.

The instant she got through the doorway there were hands in her hair and wet lips pressing against her mouth. Sherlock tasted like the storm outside and Irene twisted her fingers in the front of his shirt, pushing herself against him. The absence of her shoes made the height difference between them somewhat awkward and she had to practically stand on the tips of her toes to meet his mouth.

They were both a mess of wet hair and soaked clothing stuck to their skin, and Irene pressed herself to him just as much out of desire as it was because it was improbably cold.

“We should get you out of these before you get hypothermia,” he said, lips brushing against her forehead while those ridiculously long fingers worked open the buttons on the front of her blouse.

“So it’s just my health that you’re concerned for then?” Irene whispered between kisses, unable to keep the smirk out of her voice.

“Of course, if you wind up in hospital Lestrade will never let me hear the end of it.” Sherlock told her, punctuating by pulling her shirt the rest of the way open and roughly over her shoulders to fall in an undignified pile on the floor. “I never studied medicine, but it’s my understanding that direct body contact is generally thought to be one of the best ways of treating that.”

“Oh.” She breathed before his mouth was over hers again and he was pushing her down onto the mattress, all angles and hands and mouth brushing over her neck and chest and over her arms like he needed to study her, understand her. He kept a running tally of every tiny scar or old wound he came across as he made his way down her torso. And it was all she could do to not make an utter fool of herself at the feel of it, so she squeezed her eyes shut and bit down on her bottom lip hard enough to be greeted with the slightest coppery taste.

“I could just tell you how I got them, you know,” Irene gasped as Sherlock’s teeth grated over her hip bone.

“Don’t. It’s not a game if you tell me. Now shut up. Chemical burn from when you were fourteen,” Sherlock said against the crook of her left elbow. “You had five … no… _six_ stitches. Whoever put you back together was an artist, you can barely notice the suture marks here. They were a genius, they had to sew your whole bloody arm up and no one would ever know…” The underside of her right forearm “My… didn’t you get into your share of fights as a child… my...”

She opened her eyes enough to peer awkwardly down her own torso to where he hovered, grinning in a way that should have made her blood run cold if only it didn’t just make her heart beat even faster in her chest.

“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men... you’re an absolute disaster.” He said like it was the most amazing, wonderful thing in the world, nipping at the inside of her right wrist. She knew she ought to really have been offended; but a disaster in Sherlock Holmes’ book was so much better than the boys who had told her she was beautiful or clever, or even that they loved her.

“Look, are you going to come down here or not?” Irene said after awhile. He titled his head, considering this.

“Tell me about the stitches.” He smiled crookedly, running a thumb along the inside of her arm.

“Now, if you’re going to be the way, I’d just as soon sleep in my own bed. My apartment might be awful but it’s a fair bit warmer than this,” she grumbled in mock annoyance and attempted to roll onto her side despite the madman seated between her knees. Sherlock let go of her arm to grab hard onto her thighs, blunt fingernails digging into her skin.

“You’re assuming I’d let you leave.” He all but growled.

“Try and stop me.” She whispered. A slow grin spread across his face: he made a monosyllabic sound of agreement and let Irene tug him down onto the bed with her.

**

Irene woke up to a square of gray light from the room’s only, dusty, window falling across her and the otherwise empty bed. She sat up and looked around the room, attempting to retrace the footsteps of the night before, specifically in hopes of locating her clothes. She found her bra and knickers on and beside the bedside table, respectively, and her skirt half under the bed. Her stockings had been utterly destroyed during the night’s proceedings and when she located her blouse it was still miserably damp.

She glanced at the small digital clock by the bed and sighed, she had roughly four hours before she was expected to show up to the Yard, so she wriggled into the clothing articles that were the in the closest vicinity to being dry. And she mostly hoped that she would have time to get home for a shower and a change of clothes, doing the walk of shame directly into the Yard would not improve her situation; if anything it might make Sally give up on her all together.

Irene was in the midst of weighing the pros and cons of putting on her still wet blouse when she felt something light and soft drape around her shoulders. She recognized the subtle pinstripes on the shirt instantly.

“Thanks,” she said, turning to Sherlock with a grateful smile as she did up the buttons. It was an uncharacteristically sweet gesture on his part.

“I’ll need that back,” he told her, looking at once uncomfortable and expectant.

“Of course.” She rose on the tips of her toes and placed a soft kiss against his mouth.

“You really are much too short without you shoes,” Sherlock murmured and Irene scowled up at him.

“I am no such thing, you’re too tall,” Irene quipped with a light slap on his arm “See you at the station?”

“We have a serial killer who is running about exsanguinating people, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He told her.

**

It wasn’t too far into her walk from Sherlock Holmes’ flat that Irene gave up on her ridiculous stilettos, which were even less comfortable without the barrier of her stockings. She was keenly aware of how she looked, walking down the street, shoes in hand, wearing a man’s shirt, with her hair half pulled up and a dozen incriminating looking bruises beginning to form along the visible areas of her neck and chest. Irene was, needless to say, grateful that it was still early enough in the morning that there wouldn’t be many witnesses to her in that state.

The last thing she had been expecting was the dark car that pulled to a stop behind her with a soft humming sound. The man who unfolded from the driver’s side of the car looked like he had been pulled from every cliché secret agent film Irene had ever watched, all dark suit and glasses, fingers pressed to his ear piece.

“Irene Adler?” the man asked after a moment of nodding thoughtfully to whatever words were streaming in through his earpiece.

“Yes…?” she said slowly trying to gauge the man’s intentions, which was not easy with his eyes obscured by the dark glasses.

“I’ve been sent to collect you, please get in the car.”

“Collect me?” Irene repeated and the man gave a small curt nod. “And what if I, I don’t know, _don’t_ just get in the car? What if I say no? What if I _run_?”

“If you run, Miss Adler, then I will chase you. And I can assure you that if you do that it will not end well for anyone. I am fast, and I am armed. I’ve been told to avoid using brute force, but I will all the same. So it’s really in everyone’s best interest if you just get in the car. Now.”

He punctuated the last sentence by opening the back door and inclining his head towards the car’s interior. Irene’s glance flickered up to the CCTV camera mounted on the lamp post nearest to her, sincerely hoping that it was on and documenting everything, and hoping even more that someone at the yard would think to go looking for her if she didn’t show up for a few days. The man drummed his fingers impatiently against the top of the car’s door frame and Irene took a long, assessing look at the firearm strapped to his hip before she took a deep breath and climbed into the back seat.


	5. You're all humming live wires under your killing clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "My brother has his demons, Miss Adler, and his vices he uses to tame them. But he’s taken an interest in you, and since he’s developed that interest there have been less incidents. And, considering you are wearing my brother’s shirt, I am willing to hazard a guess that that interest is mutual."

 

The car rolled to a whispering halt outside a small cafe in Brixton. Irene recoiled slightly when the man in the suit pulled the door of the car open.

"Get out, miss Adler." He said, adding "You’re better off being a guest than a hostage ma'am, don't make me remove you."

She regarded him for a moment, weighing her options, before mentally conceding that he was likely right. She slipped back into her stilettos and allowed him to propel her into the cafe with a hand on the small of her back.

The interior of the cafe was nearly vacant with the exception of a single table; seated at which was a man, slightly overweight and with an air of perfect authority about him. He was dressed in an expensive, tailored, suit that made Irene even more self conscious about her current state of dress. The man smiled as she entered.

"Ah, Miss Adler, do sit down" he told her, making a motion towards the seat across from him with his umbrella. The man who had driven her pulled the chair out for her, and after she’d sat, moved to stand behind the man with the umbrella, hands folded in front of him.

"I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why you've kidnapped me are you?" Irene asked, fingers knotting in the hem of her skirt underneath the table.

"Kidnapped you? Now, there’s no need to be dramatic." He said with a small laugh. A waitress materialized from the back of the cafe and set two steaming china cups on the table. "Black currant Ceylon, milk, three sugars, that is how you take your tea isn’t it?" He let out a small chuckle as Irene regarded her cup warily. "Don’t be silly, my dear. It’s not poisoned. If I had wanted you dead I would have had you disposed of some time ago."

She took a sip of the tea and acknowledged, grudgingly, that it was amazing.

"All right, as I am apparently not being kidnapped, do I get to know why I’ve been brought here?" She asked.

"All in good time" he told her, tracing an index finger over the handle of his umbrella. "Now, this is when I was going to ask you about the nature of your relationship with Sherlock Holmes, however" he paused to give her a scrutinizing look, with a smile far too mocking for her tastes "I believe the answer to that question is, painfully, obvious"

“I’m sorry, but how is my relationship with Sherlock any of your- Oh.” It settled on her in a bizarre clarity. “You… you’re his brother.”

“ _Very_ good” he laughed “No wonder he likes you, Sherlock never has been one to suffer idiots.

"So this is what then? Some sort of hazing thing? You’re going to tell me to stay away from him or something?"

"Hardly, my dear; I simply feel it my duty to be aware of my little brother's goings on" he met her eyes with a self assured little smirk "Or do you never wonder how Henry is fairing? He was what, eight, when you left home?"

Irene started slightly; it was the first thing he'd said that had truly caught her off guard.

"How do you know about him?" She asked cautiously.

"My dear girl, I’ve done my research, of course"

"What? On me?"

"Quite." He replied "The thing you need to realize is, though you’ve been endearingly careful about burying your past, I have the sort of resources that allow me to follow any and all paper trails. And so very many things leave them: name changes, psychological evaluations, hospital admission forms..."

Irene made a small nod of her head, teeth worrying at her lower lip. "You know then."

"Let me see," It was a command, not a request, punctuated with an expectant gesture of his hands. He made a disapproving face with a slight inclination of his head when she remained perfectly still. Irene took a deep breath and leaned across the table, resting her left forearm, underside up, across his upturned palms.

"It is quite gifted work, I’ll give them that. But that’s not what interests me about you. There are perfectly detailed records of your medical ... incidents. I want to know what made little Katherine Amelia Murphy run all the way to England and become you. Was it the voices, Irene? Those are some fairly strong medications you’re on, they must be keeping something terribly frightening away."

She pulled her arm back like she’d been burned.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about" Irene told him, keeping her voice carefully level.

"Of course you don’t. But were getting terribly off topic, I’m afraid. I have a bit of proposal for you." When Irene made no reply he continued “My brother can be ever so difficult, and I find myself so often preoccupied with what trouble he may be getting himself into.”

“Sherlock is a big boy; he can take care of himself.” Irene told him, finding it easier to maintain her uninterested, almost bored, appearance once she was no longer the subject of the older Holmes brother’s scrutiny.

“You’ve seen how he lives, you can’t possibly believe that. Sherlock is clever, undoubtedly he’s discovered your scars, and surely you’ve noticed his as well.”

While Irene had been, admittedly, somewhat distracted when she’d been around Sherlock with his clothes off, she was always observant. She had noticed, because she’d noticed _everything_ about Sherlock, it went along with being utterly fixated on him. So of course she’d noticed the web of pale scars covering the underside of his arm. A mess of punctures and erratic white lines so different from the subtle, straight, sutures on hers.

“My brother has his demons, Miss Adler, and his vices he uses to tame them. But he’s taken an interest in you, and since he’s developed that interest there have been less incidents. And, considering you are wearing my brother’s shirt, I am willing to hazard a guess that that interest is mutual.”

“Where are you going with this?” Irene asked with an arched eyebrow.

“Sherlock, despite what he would have people believe, needs someone to look after him. And I have neither the time, nor enough of his affection, to do the job myself. If you were able to look after him you would be taken care of. You have, what, two months left in school? I’m willing to bet that you’ve amassed your share of debt from all those student loans you’ve taken out. Even with connections you’re not going to be in a position to make much money at Scotland Yard, at least not for some time. Then there’s that dank hovel you’ve been living in. These are just a few things that could be dealt with.”

“If I agree to be your brother’s nanny?” She made a small, disbelieving laugh “You’re not serious.”

“I thought you might respond that way. Which is why I’m prepared to sweeten the deal; you keep an eye on Sherlock for me, and in addition to what I’ve already mentioned I can make Katherine Murphy disappear. Completely. That pesky little paper trail of yours can go away entirely and no one will ever know that you were ever anyone but Irene Adler.” She straightened in her chair, folding her hands in her lap.

“I’m listening.” She said after a moment.

**

Irene found herself deposited in front of her apartment building with only an eggshell white business card, embossed with the name “Mycroft Holmes” and a phone number to convince her that the morning had not been a complete mental fabrication. The man who had dropped her off had disappeared back into his dark car with only the shortest quip of “We’ll be in touch, Miss Adler”. And Irene took a number of slow, deep breaths, and tried to regain her composure. The inside of her flat seemed even more depressing after having spent the morning with the older Holmes and his tailored suits and hired body guards. En route to her shower she fired off a text reading:

 _Is your whole family as charming as your brother?_

As she stepped into the shower she hoped that somehow the water would help wash the feeling of being in a far too strange, waking dream down the drain.

**

She felt marginally more in control once she was clean, in a fresh change of clothes, with liberal amounts of cover up over the bite marks and bruises on her neck.

Sherlock was waiting outside the station, all furrowed eyebrows and mouth pressed into a single flat line.

“Well that face can’t mean anything good.” Irene said, coming to a stop in front of him.

“It’s never good when Mycroft is involved.”

“He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse; it was all very Godfather.”

“I fail to see how your Godfather enters into this” Sherlock said tersely, pushing his hands deeps into the pockets of his coat.

“You’re kidding, right?” Irene laughed, when Sherlock continued to stare at her without a flicker of humor she sighed heavily, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Right, I’ll attempt to stay away from gangster movie references with you.”

“You’ve still not told me what Mycroft wanted.” It was more of an impatient huff then anything else.

“Nothing much, apparently I’m your new babysitter.” Something came across in Sherlock’s smile in response to her statement that looked practically devious.

“Well that is certainly introducing some rather interesting kinks fairly early on” He said moving closer to her and resting one gloved hand against her hip.

“You’re the one who owns a riding crop.” She laughed, tilting her face up to meet his mouth.

“Let’s go see if our new favorite killer has left us any presents” Sherlock said, holding the station door open for her.

**

"We’ve still got next to nothing on our killer, considering the lack of evidence on the scene, but we at least have a positive I.D. on our victim now." Lestrade said, with a motion to the whiteboard behind him, where the few known facts on the case had been written alongside a small collection of crime scene photos. "They were able to pull dental records for us at the morgue, so we now know our boy to be one Ray Harmon, age 36, of South Kensington. Since the killer didn't leave us anything, we're going to have to hope for now that Mr. Harmon can give us a clue. We need to know about his job, his family, his hobbies. They may have known each other."

Sherlock had not looked up from his phone once while Lestrade had spoke, fingers busily clicking away at the keys of the mobile. Irene nudged him in the side gently with her elbow.

"What’s wrong?" She whispered "I've never known you to get bored when there's a perfectly good murder being discussed"

"Family business" he told her, with a terse smile that never reached his eyes. Irene crossed her arms across her chest.

“This wouldn’t be the same sort of family business that got me abducted this morning would it? Because I can safely say that I’ve had my fill of that.”

“Mycroft does so enjoy his dramatics.” Sherlock agreed, glancing up at her from the mobile   
“You aren’t unfortunate enough to have siblings, are you?”

“What? No.” Irene said quickly, instantly wishing that she had sounded less nervous. But if Sherlock noticed it he didn’t comment.

“Consider yourself lucky then.” Sherlock huffed, shoving his mobile into his pocket.

“I’m sorry, but what have I gotten myself stuck in the middle of?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with” he told her with a nonchalant shrug “I have a decent idea of how I can fix this.” Irene raised an eyebrow at that.

“Fix _what_ , exactly?”

“Like I said, nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

“You realize the more you say that the more concerned I actually get.” She said. This prompted a wry smile from Sherlock before he turned on his heel and left; and Irene began to suppose that any time she could wake from whatever bizarre dream this was would not be soon enough.

**

The same suited man from earlier that morning was waiting for her outside the station, leaning against what was, presumably, the same dark car he’d essentially bullied her into.

“Oh dear God, now what?” she groaned at him.

“I’ve been instructed to take you home, Miss Adler.”

“That’s sweet and all, but I’m pretty sure I can manage the tube. I’ve gotten by this long without a chaperon.”

The man sighed, running his hand absently over the front of his suit jacket.

“Do we really need to go through this song and dance again? Here I thought we’d moved past me needing to threaten you into doing things.”

Irene narrowed her eyes at him before muttering a terse “fine” and climbing into the back seat.

**

Irene’s first impulse upon being all but propelled into the upscale flat in Mayfair was to insist that there had been some mistake, and that there was no way that she lived anywhere this expensive. But she could clearly see her possessions arranged around the living room, with the edition of countless items she had never seen before in her life.

“I’m sorry, but what’s going on here? Half of these things aren’t even mine.” She cast a confused look over her shoulder at the man in the suit.

“That’s because they’re mine” a voice chimed from the other room, Irene knew who it belonged to even before he turned the corner and leaned nonchalantly against the door frame. “I figured if you were going to be looking after me that I should make it easy on you.”

“So you moved in.” Irene said evenly, Sherlock made a slight incline of his head.

“So I moved in.” The man in the suit made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a snort and folded a set of keys into Irene’s hand, before quietly exiting the flat.

“I’ve had guys not call me after we slept together… I’ve never had one decide to live with me.” She told him, making a mental inventory of the contents of the living room, her eyes briefly lingering on what appeared to be a human brain in a mason jar.

“The way I see it, my brother is more or less employing you to keep an eye on me. So I’m making your job easier for you.”

"So then, I'm supposed to believe that you did this out of the goodness of your heart, just to make my life easier?" Sherlock made a small shrug at that.

"Well, the flat is definitely nicer, and I couldn't very well pass up the chance to irritate Mycroft" Irene nodded, lips pursed.

"I see."

"You're upset with me." He stated with a frown that appeared actually concerned, and made him appear much younger. It made Irene smile in spite of herself.

"No, I'm not, it's just a lot to absorb in one day... Do you suppose your brother would have installed video surveillance in here?"

"I suppose he would have" Sherlock replied with a grin nearly as mischievous looking as the one Irene was fighting back.

"Well, I suppose we should locate the cameras and give him a good reason to switch them off." She told him with a conspiratorial wink. Sherlock laughed and followed her out of the room.


	6. "Quiet Down" She Said, Speaking To The Back Of His Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He won’t make the same mistake he did, especially with that ridiculous nickname. And if that happens then the case will utterly fall apart, and then we’ll be right back where we were with a long span of horrible boring _nothing_. And my brain will utterly rot out of my skull. I can feel it starting already”

 

Irene found living with Sherlock to be far easier than she had initially anticipated. She was practically un-phased by the odd thumb or ear that found its way into the vegetable crisper; and she found Sherlock's three am violin playing oddly calming.

But then, she was generally in favor of anything that kept away the silence.

She worked around the laboratory equipment that had taken up residence on the dining room table, she didn't even complain about the fact that she seemed to be perpetually retrieving various articles of his clothing from the living room floor. The only point where she had taken exception was when Sherlock's experiments had interfered with her shower.

"I have to be to class in an hour and a half, and there are femurs in the bath tub, Sherlock. _Femurs_." She'd told him exasperatedly. Sherlock barely looked up from where he had sulkily draped himself across the sofa, leading Irene to lean over the backing and poke him lightly between his ribs until he responded with a half hearted groan.

But at least there were no more body parts in the bath tub after that, just everywhere else in the flat. Which she could deal with. So she ignored it when the next day Sherlock had, almost petulantly, put a Tupperware container of eyeballs on top of her Chinese take away leftovers.

**

The week that Irene began living with Sherlock, Lestrade called her into his office, neatly tucked a pistol into her hands and told her, “Officially this never happened. I shouldn’t ask, but do you know how to fire one of these?” Irene smiled and nodded, and decided it best to not mention that she had learned how to fire a gun when she was fifteen. A boy she’d dated in Bayonne had taught her. His father had left him two things – a beat up Ford truck, and an extensive collection of firearms.

“Not that I don’t appreciate it, but can I ask why you’re giving me this?” She said him.

“Trouble has a way of following that boy… I would just feel better knowing you had it.” He mumbled with a frown that made him look so the worried father Irene couldn’t help but find it endearing.

“Thank you.” She whispered, and rose on her toes to brush a light kiss on his cheek.

**

Two days later Sally pulled her into the women’s lavatory and showed her the multitude of ways you could conceal all manner of weapons under your clothing.

“Just in case… you never know” She’d said, tucking a flat blade into the top of Irene’s boot.

The two occurrences were the closest Irene had come to feeling like she’d had a family. Even if her adopted family seemed to be of the opinion that the boy she had gotten romantically involved with was going to get her killed

**

One of the first things Irene became aware of in living with Sherlock was the frequency with which he sulked. There had been no new leads on Ray Harmon’s killer, and a lack of news on that made Sherlock bored, and boredom soon turned into a sort of sullen depression and him taking up a constant residence on the sofa; staring glumly at the international news feed on the television.

The third day that he’d been like that Irene paused on her route towards the door and school and regarded her … _boyfriend?_ She still had no way of quantifying what their relationship even was, but that was beside the fact. She wedged herself into the small amount of free space on the sofa and put a light hand on Sherlock’s hip.

“Is it the case?” She asked quietly “Is that what’s bothering you? Just because no one at the yard has turned anything up on the killer doesn’t mean _we_ won’t.”

“They’re calling him the Leicester Square Vampire.” Sherlock said tonelessly. “It was on the news half an hour ago.”

“It’s leaked to the media already? That’s not good.”

"No," his voice sounded almost petulant. "It isn’t. If anything it will likely drive him completely underground. He won’t make the same mistake he did, especially with that ridiculous nickname. And if that happens then the case will utterly fall apart, and then we’ll be right back where we were with a long span of horrible boring _nothing_. And my brain will utterly rot out of my skull. I can feel it starting already”

“I can’t possibly be _that_ bad.”

Sherlock pushed himself up on his elbows and regarded her.

“Irene,” he started in a voice half way between patient and patronizing “You leave the flat, and you have the university and whatever ridiculous errands Lestrade thinks up for you at the yard to keep yourself occupied. I don’t. All I have is the work, and there isn’t any right now, so don’t tell me it isn’t that bad.”

Irene stifled the retort already at the tip of her tongue, she was sure that informing Sherlock that he was behaving like a toddler would not improve the situation, if anything it would possibly make it worse.

“All right, all right, it’s that bad.” She conceded, raising her hands as if in surrender “So how about you meet me at the park just outside campus when I get out of class, and we can go over to the crime scene, just the two of us and see if we don’t notice something we missed the first time. You know, when we were busy trying to avoid Anderson and all that.”

Sherlock made a noncommittal grunting sound, and returned to reclining on the couch.

“Come on, it will cheer you up. It’s a crime scene, we both know you love crime scenes” Irene poked lightly at his ribs as punctuation.

“All right” he grumbled.

“Good. Meet me at three.” She said, leaning over and kissing him on the forehead before getting to her feet and heading for the door.

**

A quarter past three Irene found herself still seated on the wooden park bench over looking a duck pond. She closed her book and fished her mobile out of her handbag. She typed “ _You’re late, Dear_ ” and sent it to Sherlock with an annoyed little huff.

For all of his other faults Sherlock Holmes was always punctual, to a fault, and rather obviously thought punctuality was an important trait. To the extent to when Irene had been late to one of their meetings he had actually sulked for almost the entire night afterwards. But not before a clipped remark about wasting people’s time.

It made Irene irritable, and after she realized she had read the same paragraph in her book four times, she gave up on reading entirely and fished her package of Virginia Slims from her purse.

**

Irene had been halfway through her second cigarette when she heard a man’s voice behind her.

“This seat taken?” It caught her off guard enough that she inhaled sharply and found herself in a coughing fit as a result. The man sat quickly, placing a concerned hand on her back “Oh Jesus, I’m sorry. Are you all right?” he asked with the slightest tint of panic in his voice.   
Irene finally regained herself and looked up; roughly her height, dark hair and eyes, sharply dressed. He was attractive in the way that made her imagine he was the kind of boy who would actually call you the next day, and might even bring flowers.

“It’s fine I just startle way too easily”

“Oh good” he grinned “I thought I might have killed you for a moment there.”

“I’d like to think I have at least a few more years before the cigarettes finally do me in.” She said with a small laugh.

“Well, I’m sorry for _nearly_ killing you then. I’m Jim, by the way, Jim McGann.” He told her, extending his hand, and she dropped her cigarette to grab it.

“Irene Adler”

“We actually have Biopsychology with Professor Bennet together.”

“We do? Oh, this is a little embarrassing.” He shook his head.

“No no, I sit in the back and try to blend into the wall. One of the downsides of doing grad school is that you constantly feel like an old man in a room full of children.”

“I was a little worried you were going to say that we’d had like, eight classes together and then I was going to feel like a complete ass.” Irene laughed.

“Not the case at all, I’ve only taken a little bit of psychology to round out the rest of my degree.”

“Which is?”

“Er… mathematics? Don’t laugh” He warned with mock sternness, and Irene smiled and shook her head “But what about you? You’re the one who landed the internship with Scotland Yard, right? I am properly jealous of that, you’re going to be doing proper CSI level things while I’m writing numbers and figures on a chalkboard for a bunch of apathetic kids.”

“It’s less “CSI” and more “The Office” right about now, lots of photocopies and making coffee, but I really can’t complain.” Irene told him.

“Still properly jealous.”

“It is quite good, I can’t really lie.” She conceded, attempting to subtly check the time, yet again, on her mobile. Ten past four. She wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or annoyed.

“Your boyfriend is running late.” Jim said matter-of-factly, Irene started slightly and blinked at him.

“Wait, how do you know that?” She asked with a suspicious quirk of her eyebrow.

“How did I know that you have a boyfriend? Or how did I know that he was late?”

“Both.”

“Number one: of course I know you have a boyfriend, I’m not blind and I’m _certainly_ not stupid. Number two: it has been my personal experience that ladies only get that _particular_ look of irritation that you had when I first saw you here when the man in their life has done something troubling, that and the fact you have been checking the time roughly every fifteen seconds.”

“You and him would probably get on,” She said with a frown, she got enough deductions about her at home from Sherlock, she wasn’t sure she wanted the same thing from a man she’d just met.

She felt almost relieved when her phone buzzed slightly and then began to play the first few bars of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, the caller ID blinking “Scotland Yard” on the phone’s tiny screen.

“Hello?” She answered into her mobile.

“I don’t suppose you would be interested in putting in a bit of over time would you?” Lestrade asked from the other end.

“Oh, no, I can, why? What is it?”

“Our ‘vampire’ struck again. But it’s different this time.”

“Is there blood?” She asked, trying not to sound excited, it made Lestrade uncomfortable when she sounded too happy about a crime, so she generally tried her best to keep it in check.

“Well, there is, and there isn’t. The new body is just like the last one, completely drained. But we found this one just sitting there, instead of strung up. And the killer left a message on the wall behind him, we don’t know who it belongs to, but it’s definitely written in blood.”

“Oh.” Irene took a deep breath. It took more effort to sound nonchalant “I’ll get there as soon as I can, where is the crime scene?”

“The Tottenham Court Road Station”

“Okay, I’ll be right over, have you told Sherlock about this?” There was a distinct pause on the other end of the line.

“I called him, left about four different messages, he isn’t answering his phone.”

“And you did mention that there was a new crime scene?” She asked, trying to ignore the nagging feeling of something being just not right at all that was settling in her stomach.

“Multiple times.”

“Oh.” She said, now positive that something was wrong as she clicked her phone shut and stood up. “I’m really sorry, I need to go.” She told Jim as she hurriedly collected her things.

“Oh, of course…” He said in a quiet, confused, voice. Irene made a small wave of her hand back to him as she ran towards the street, already frantically waving for a taxi before she was even at the curbside.

**

Irene nearly tripped twice between the taxi and the lobby of her apartment building running in her heels, and one more time as she all but slid into the lift.

Her keys stuck slightly in the lock of her flat and when she finally got the door open it banged hard into the wall behind it.

“Sherlock?” She called cautiously as she entered the flat. The first noise she was aware of inside was the whistling of the tea kettle and the accompanying hiss of water hitting the stove burner. “Sherlock?” She tried again, slightly louder.

She found him in the living room and for a minute the entire world stopped dead.

Sherlock’s eyes were half-lidded and unfocused, and even without taking in the rubber tubing wrapped around his arm, or the new puncture in the mess of track marks on his forearm, or the needle that had rolled to the floor, Irene knew what had happened. She slid to the floor next to the couch, not noticing when the hardwood floor cut through her stockings and into her knees.

And then she was grabbing onto his shoulders and shaking him and screaming his name over and over. When the most she got out of him was a small gurgling whisper she scrambled for her purse, tipping all of its contents onto the floor and pawing through them until her hands landed on an eggshell white business card with the name “Mycroft Holmes” embossed on it.

She keyed the number into her mobile with shaking hands and tried to regulate her breathing. He picked up on the second ring.

“It’s Sherlock. I, I don’t know what to do.” She choked into the receiver.

“Stay where you are, I’m sending people right now.”

Irene closed her phone and leaned back against the seat of the couch, her eyes fixed on the still open door of the flat, waiting.


End file.
